ALLAHABAD: The visitors coming to Kumbh 2019, including Indians and several foreign nationals will not have to wander searching for various roads, camps and ghats etc in the vast Mela area. The maze of roads in the tent city of the vast mela area, spread over 800 acres of land beside river Ganga, could be seen on the palm of any smart phone user by accessing Google map.
Authorities have asked the agency, who is making the software to be used for developing Allahabad as a smart city, to upload all the minute details of the Mela area on Google map so that any user could easily search for the destined place of his or her choice without asking for any help.
Normally, the magh mela is spread in an area of around 700 acres of land, stretching from Qila ghat to Shashtri bridge near Daraganj. However, Maha Kumbh 2013 was even larger as it covered an area of around 1000 acres of land, stretching upto Buxi bund (ahead of Nagvasuki temple). To connect the Jhunsi and city side bank of might Ganga, the authorities construct Six pontoon bridges, numbers of which goes upto 22 at the time of Maha Kumbh or Ardh Kumbh.
On this massive area, authorities make arrangements for habituating, what is called as ‘city of tents’, within which there is a complicated maze of roads, streets, tents of 13 prominent Akhara, hundreds of tents belonging to Dandi Swami’s, still thousands of more belonging to saints who come from all the parts of the country etc.
Going with the proposal of the state and district administration and the funds allocated, Kumbh 2019 would be a mammoth event, much bigger as compared to the previous occasions. The bigger the event, much problematic would be spot a given ‘marg’ (road), tent of a specific saint or for that matter Akhara. Same will be the situation with finding the offices of various government and non-governmental agencies.
However, perceiving the problems faced on earlier occasions, the administration has this time decided to lend a helping hand to every visitor. For the purpose, an agency has been asked to upload all the details, one may call it the blue print of the entire city which would be come up by the end of December this year, on the google map so that anyone using the facility on smart phone can search for the place of his choice.
“We this pioneering step, we would be catering to lots of facilities for the pilgrims coming for Kumbh, will also minimize the cases of people getting lost in the mela area, wandering here and there for hours together to get the correct location etc”, said Kumbh Mela Adhikari, Vijay Kiran Anand.